30 Historical People You Probably Don't Know

27.... somehow typed every other name except Jane.

I think the description is a bit of an exaggeration. Some of these people are very famous. Even if you were aiming it at an American audience, presumably Benedict Arnold is famous there (and I'm sure he's unjustly vilified by your biased education system).

Got 19, but I'm pretty sure I typed in Xiaoping, all clever that I knew a recent Chinese guy, but they didn't take it. Also, what was Van Dieman's Land? I tried for some 45 seconds with variations on Van Dieman for Tasmania, but of course it wasn't him.

I was a little embarrassed by getting only nine, but then it turned out I beat more than half of the takers :D Tough quiz!

I thought that Sitting Bull was the elder of the two leaders (with Crazy Horse) that defeated Custer at Little Big Horn.

Got twelve, should have remembered others

Great quiz but it could do with a bit more leeway on the spelling especially as a fair few of them are blinking hard to spell and this isn't the type of quiz where you have a lot of time at the end to go back and try a dozen different spellings.

I think I did alright with 21/30, but there's at least 2 more I should have gotten (Ho Chi Minh and Philip II), and 4 more I could potentially have gotten since I have at least a little familiarity with them (Grace Kelly, Jane Seymour, John Maynard Keynes, and Justinian). I didn't know Alfred Dreyfus or Guglielmo Marconi at all though.

16/30

Maybe allow more leeway in spelling, i.e. Nightingale, Imhotep, and Hummarabi

Never considered myself a true geek, but if Jetpunk says so...

Woohoo! I‘m a geek, got 23, (but only three of them have I never heard of - Stowe, Borlaug and Arnold...)

Didn't know about Erikson. Interesting.

A lot of these I really don't know but others seem rather famous. Tesla especially surprised me.

Damn, only 8/30.

This is hard!

Could you allow the last name only for Mao's successor - typed it in and managed to spell it right too, ended up having to type the slightly easier to spell first name.

A few type-ins could arguably be added for Grace Kelly: Princess Grace, Grace of Monaco or even Grace alone, precisely because she was a princess of Monaco... (those people have a special status, like it or not). For the moment, it's like strictly asking for Diana Spencer.

Kept typing Eriksson - the correct spelling - never thought of trying Ericson. Please at least allow the correct spelling

that was bloody hard. Struggled manfully to 11, albeit with 4 or 5 that I probably should have got in retrospect

Is 9/30 good for a 14-year-old??

Jokes on you, I know the Epic Rap Battle "Alexander the great vs Ivan the terrible" from memory B)

That moment when you got Qin Shi-Huang, Imhotep, and Borlaug but forgot Seymour, Ho Chi Minh, and Wellington

I'll never forget Stowe because of a contest run by Organic Gardening magazine in the 1970s or '80s. They asked people to change the names of authors and their books or singers and their songs to give them a gardening slant. The winning entry was Harriet Beecher Slaw for her book, "Uncle Tom's Cabbage". (Another one mentioned was Elvis Parsley for his song, "Hothouse Rock".)

I got 13/30, then read the instructions. Not wanting to lose the "True Geek" status, I managed to pull 3 more from somewhere, and got just over half

I was taught in school that the first emperor of China was Shi Huangdi. Is there a way this could be accepted, too?

I'm quite surprised that the average score is 11, most of these people are still fairly well known.

I guessed Cumberbatch. Right first name, wrong last name.

Doesn't accept Yuri.

Got exactly half. Do I pass?

Hate how I knew like half of the ones I got wrong, just couldn't remember them or didn't know that they were famous for that specific thing.

Also managed to not even notice two of the questions.

It's interesting to see how the percentage correctly getting a particular person seems to have little to do with how significant that person was. Grace Kelly is really not an individual of any grand historical importance, yet is near the top. By contrast the likes of the founder of the Chinese Empire (Qin Shi Huang), the man who almost restored the Roman Empire and is responsible for much of the world's legal systems (Justinian), and the man who launched China on its road back to superpower status (Deng Xiaoping) are near the bottom. And Norman Borlaug, often credited with saving a billion people from starvation (possibly an exaggeration, but not an utterly absurd one) is almost completely unknown.

For Justinian it should be "reconquererd" as he was emperor of Rome and Italy used to be Roman.

Kicking myself for forgetting saladin! I tried saracin, sacarin, etc, so at least I was going in the right direction.

Does getting exactly half make me a borderline geek? lol.

Nice one. John Maynard Keynes's name is strangely similar to the name of the lead singer from Tool.

7/30. Waaaaaay more people should've got Bourlag. He's so important.

Only got Yuri Gagarin, but I knew Harriet Stowe just couldn't remember the exact name

Most of these I found pretty easy, and a few I was surprised to see classed as obscure - I'm surprised how few know the Duke of Wellington. I was also surprised by Catherine the Great's inclusion, though judging by the percentages she is in fact pretty well known. On the other hand, while I knew Deng Xiaoping and Qin Shihuangdi would not be well-known, I was still kinda horrified by how low they were, given they are such titanic figures in history. I continually find it wild how even amongst a pretty knowledgeable group of people like those that frequent this site, there's so much ignorance of Chinese history and geography.

It’s good to know I’m not the only one who knew several names but just couldn’t recall them quickly

Ohhhh, the question was about *Prussia.* I read Persia and kept trying different spellings of Xerxes and Cyrus

I remember reading about Norman Borlaug at school and immediately forgetting him.

Salahaddin? Nope.

Salahuddin? Nope.

Uhhh... Salah al Din? Nope.

Salah ad-din? Nope.

Hmm.

Oh, right! In English his name is contracted a bit! So...

Saluddin? Nope.

Saladdin? Nope.

Huh. Must have the wrong guy. 🤷‍♂️ Guess I don't know it.

A few type-ins for that one would be nice! 😁

22/30

22/30 - Four I really didn't know, but there were four I knew and couldn't remember, like I can never remember more than Yuri G something something n, and I named Henry's five other wives but had a brain fart on the one who was also a Bond girl. Sigh. I also had to type "j'accuse" to get the name Dreyfus to come to me lol.

Leif Erikson is spelt with a K not a C.

Thought the Lakota war leader, who defeated Custer, was Sitting Bull?

Surely Felipe should be accepted for Philip?